After clinching the 5A West conference title a couple weeks ago, the Greenwood Lady Bulldogs put a cherry on top of their regular season parfait by going undefeated in league play, finishing a perfect 14-0. The GHS girls also finished three games ahead of second place Vilonia (11-3) and are now 24-4 overall heading into the 5A state tournament.
The Lady Bulldogs (West-1) will enter post-season play as one of the top four seeds in the state, the others being Jacksonville (Central-1), Lake Hamilton (South-1), and Jonesboro (East-1). Greenwood plays Little Rock Parkview (Central-4) on Tuesday at 1 p.m. at Sheridan High School, which is hosting the tournament this year.
The winner of the Greenwood-Parkview game will play on Thursday at 7 p.m. against the winner of Wednesday’s West Memphis-El Dorado contest. For those who can’t attend in person, Greenwood’s tournament games will be live streamed by Greenwood Sports Center, except for the finals, should the Greenwood girls get there. For more information, see the Arkansas Activities Association website for the tournament bracket under the sports/basketball tab.
The Lady Bulldogs most recent victories came at the expense of Mountain Home, Alma, and Greenbrier, all easy double-digit victories. The regular season and conference schedule ended last Saturday afternoon at H.B. Stewart Arena with a win over Greenbrier. The game was originally slated for Friday, but was moved to Saturday due to the wintry weather last week. It also served as senior day for Greenwood.
Greenbrier
Head Coach Clay Reeves has five seniors on his squad this season, four players and one team manager. The quartet of players include starters Megan Gray and Abby Summitt, along with junior varsity players Macy Cutsinger and Payton Tedford. The senior team manager is Abigail Wisner. All five were introduced along with their parents and were honored before Saturday’s games.
When the ball was tossed up, the Lady Bulldogs seized an early lead and never let go of it. Ahead 10-4, junior Mady Cartwright drained a three-pointer making it 13-6. The period closed with Greenwood ahead 15-10. But two more treys early in the second quarter helped the GHS girls build a double-digit lead before halftime.
The first was by Megan Gray, making the score 20-10 as the home team scored the first five points of the period. The second trey was launched by Abby Summitt and made it 24-15 moments later. With a minute left before the break, Greenwood led 36-25, but settled for a 36-27 advantage as both teams headed for their locker rooms.
The GHS girls then buried the Lady Panthers in the third quarter, outscoring them 25-10 on a barrage of turnovers, layups, and three-pointers. Greenwood scored the first 10 points of the quarter to lead 46-27 before the visitors finally broke through with their first points of the second half. Sophomore Anna Trusty nailed a pair of three-pointers, including one just before the buzzer, putting the Lady Bulldogs up 61-37.
Just past the halfway point of the final stanza, Coach Reeves pulled his starters and sent in some of his reserves, including seniors Macy Cutsinger and Payton Tedford. Among those reserves, junior guard Ashlyn Butler scored five points in the final minutes, including a three-pointer. When the final buzzer sounded, Greenwood remained perfect in conference play, winning over Greenbrier, 75-51.
After Saturday’s contest, Coach Reeves attributed the blowout win to increased intensity by his players in the third quarter. “We’re a good team with a lot of good players, and we just have to give our best effort and focus and be intense at all times. If we don’t, we’re just an average team. But when everybody is on the same page and puts out their maximum effort, we’re a really, really good team. It’s a big difference when we play hard and when we don’t play hard. Generally, we always play hard, but sometimes we let up just a little bit, and it’s obvious when we do.”
Mady Cartwright led her teammates with 26 points, followed by Anna Trusty with 22. Both Abby Summitt and Megan Gray had nine points each, all of Gray’s coming on a trio of three-pointers. “When those two (Summitt/Gray) score, it opens up things [inside]. Anna and Mady are usually attacking the basket, and do a great job.”
When asked about finishing the conference schedule unbeaten, Coach Reeves said, “It’s a long year, and we had cancellations, back-to-back night games on the road, sickness with our team and other teams, and a few injuries here and there, and our team still found ways to overcome [those things]. It is hard to [go unbeaten] in conference, but our kids stepped up and did it.”
Alma
Last Tuesday the Lady Bulldogs made the short trip to Alma to shellack the Lady Airedales, 64-30. The game was close for eight minutes, with the visitors leading 14-10 after one period. But a disastrous second quarter for the home team allowed Greenwood to blow the game open by halftime.
The Alma girls were outscored 20-2 in the quarter and trailed 34-12 at the intermission, and things improved only slightly for Alma in the third period. The Lady Bulldogs dominated the quarter, 20-12, to extend their lead to 56-24 before pulling their starters and coasting in the final stanza to a 34-point mercy rule victory. The win was also the 750th career triumph for Coach Reeves, who also has eight state titles under his belt, five at Greenwood and three at Greenland.
Anna Trusty led the team offensively with 22 points, her average for the week, followed by Mady Cartwright with 16 points. Megan Gray hit three more treys and scored 11 points while Abby Summitt contributed seven points in the win. “We came out and played hard,” said Coach Reeves of the victory, “and we played a lot of people.”
Mountain Home
On Friday, February 18th, the Lady Bulldogs welcomed the Lady Bombers of Mountain Home to H.B. Stewart Arena, but the visitors were quickly ambushed by Greenwood’s tenacious defense, attacking offense, and accurate three-point shooting. Mady Cartwright opened the scoring with a three-pointer and Mountain Home responded in kind, making the score 3-3 in the opening minute. But those were the only points the visitors would score in the first period.
Abby Summitt and Megan Gray added three-pointers, along with Cartwright’s second bomb, intertwined with numerous steals and layups for a 20-3 GHS lead after eight minutes. The Lady Bombers tripled their first quarter scoring output in the second period, but it still left them trailing 36-12 at the break.
The visitors continued to improve offensively in the third quarter, but were nonetheless outscored 23-19, leaving the Lady Bulldogs on top 59-31 with eight minutes remaining. Coach Reeves took the opportunity to rest his starters for much of the fourth period, but even the GHS reserves outscored Mountain Home. The final score was 70-35.
Mady Cartwright had a huge game offensively, scoring 30 points to lead her teammates. Anny Trusty added 15 points and Abby Summitt drilled three treys for nine points. The rest of the team accounted for the remaining 16 points.